Study: Sodas linked to obesity

February 15, 2001
Web posted at: 6:57 p.m. EST (2357 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

LONDON, England -- Children who drink sugary soft drinks are at higher risk of becoming obese, researchers in the United States report.

Their work, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, is the latest in a string of studies warning that American teenagers are increasingly putting their health at risk by consuming too much junk food.

"We found that for every additional serving per day of soft drink consumed, the risk of becoming obese increased by about 50 percent," researcher David Ludwig of Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters.

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Obesity can lead to heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

The U.S. government has become so concerned about overweight children that last year it issued new growth charts to help parents and doctors identify kids at risk of becoming obese.

The Boston researchers studied 548 children with an average age of 11 in four Massachusetts communities. They monitored the kids' intake of sugary drinks like soda, sweetened tea and fruit drinks, and noted changes in their Body Mass Index, or BMI, a measure of body fat.

Even when they accounted for factors like physical activity and other diet choices, the relation between obesity and drinking sodas remained, Ludwig said. He stressed that more research is needed to back up the findings.

In a statement on its Web site, the National Soft Drink Association refuted Ludwig's study, citing other research that found no link between obesity and soft drink consumption.

The trade group also took issue with Ludwig's methods. "The age group of the children studied typically experience major changes in body type and Body Mass Index, and the sample does not represent a valid cross section of the American population," said Richard Adamson, vice president of scientific and technical affairs.

"Childhood obesity is the result of many factors," Adamson said. "Blaming it on any single factor, including softdrinks, is nutritional nonsense."

But there is evidence that children are increasingly choosing sodas over more nutritious beverages like milk, water or natural fruit juices.

Ludwig and his colleagues found that 57 percent of the children in the study had increased their daily intake of soft drinks, many by nearly a full serving. Boys drank the most soda.

"The average teen-ager is getting 15 to 20 teaspoons a day of added sugar from soft drinks alone," Ludwig said. "Consumption rates among children have doubled in the last decade."

Indeed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that American teens drink twice as much carbonated soda as milk.

And that can lead to another problem: calcium deficiency. A study in the February 2001 issue of the Journal of Nutrition found that girls who drank more sodas got less calcium in their diets -- a situation that could lead to osteoporosis later in life.

To help combat the trend, USDA called for greater control of the foods and drinks provided in American schools. Although the agency currently requires lunches and breakfasts to meet nutritional standards, it does not regulate snacks and sodas sold outside school cafeterias -- in vending machines and concession stands, for instance.

Ludwig said the United States isn't the only country seeing an increase in soda drinking and the problems associated with it.

"The U.S. is probably consuming more soda than some European countries but unfortunately, this is a trend where America may be leading but the world is rapidly following."

He added, "The study does suggest that public health efforts aimed at limiting consumption of soft drinks in children may help prevent and treat obesity."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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USDA Team Nutrition
USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center
CDC: Obesity and Overweight
National Soft Drink Association

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